Screenwriting Course

The Screenwriting course is in Rome, is annual and aims to provide a whole series of tools to learn how to write a screenplay, also thanks to the support of practical exercises, evaluation tests and the analysis of the texts made during the year by the students.

Duration of the course: from January to December.

Before a film, its images and sounds, there is an idea. This idea must be articulated, specified, defined. It must also take shape in a story made to be told through images. Hitchcock regarded a well-written film as an already made film. The work of the screenwriter has in fact a functionality that is above all practical: it indicates the necessary production materials, the places where the shooting will take place, the number of actors and extras to be used, the use or otherwise of special effects, the times necessary for the processing and the money that will be needed to make the film.

Objective of the screenwriting course: to learn to write for Cinema (and for TV) and to become a screenwriter in all respects. Of course, without pretending to give anyone the main skills of a screenwriter: talent, imagination, pleasure to tell. Experiences, observations, impressions, memories and dreams. A screenwriter must have one to sell. In addition to a good dose of humility accompanied by at least sufficient self-confidence. Required premise before stating that everything else can be learned.

You will be able to acquire the alphabetical letters of the cinematographic language and how to combine them. You will learn the basic principles of dramaturgy, the most important narrative techniques. You will develop your skills in conceiving and expressing characters and writing a script. You will learn to maintain and intensify the interest, empathy, involvement and full participation of the spectator. Only then can you lose yourself in the great sea of ​​rules, formulas, prescriptions and recipes. We will have to get lost and then find our way through their infringement. Through a, only then imaginable, anarchy of fantasy.

Our film and television script school aims to provide a whole series of tools to approach the writing of a script, also thanks to the support of practical exercises, evaluation tests and the analysis of the texts made during the year by the students. A theory at the service of practice, and a whole series of information on the contemporary Italian cinema situation: production condition and possibility of starting the profession. It is therefore not a simple workshop, but a complete path.

How to become a screenwriter? Discover the program

In short, a brief list of the topics that will be treated by the teacher during the screenwriting master:

FROM THE IDEA TO THE REALIZATION
Learning the main stages of drafting a script: idea and premise, subject and treatment, ladder and paradigm.
THE CINEMATOGRAPHIC WRITING
Write a script. Forms and ways of writing. Technical setup of a script.
THE CINEMATOGRAPHIC NARRATION
What to tell and how to tell. How to relate to the idea and learn to dramatize through images.
STRUCTURE
From Aristotle to Syd Field: making the structure its own.
DRAMATICIZATION MECHANISMS
There are four stories, said Borges. Analysis of the main conflicts and their variations, identification of the dramatic nodes and learning of the main mechanisms of dramatization.
THE CHARACTER. ENGINE, HEART AND SOUL
Characterization of the characters.
THE DIALOGUEFunctions and technique of dialogue. Forward call and word management. Over voice, voiceover and subtitles.
DRAMATIC IRONY
When the viewer knows more than the protagonist. Principles and applications, between suspense, surprise and mystery.
SHORT FILM
The short is not simply a long short, but a form of narrative in its own right. Main structural and narrative differences of a film script based on its length.
A LOOK AT THE SPECTATOR
General notions of technique and language in relation to spectator perception, in an attempt to conquer our ideal spectator.
ADAPTATION
When the idea is not original and cinema remakes itself (remake) and the other arts (adaptation or reduction). A small guide to the transposition of the already said and already done.
WRITE FOR TELEVISION
Hypothesis of possible paths between cinema and television. The formats of the TV series. Writing for the small screen, or structuring in episodes. From the concept to the Bible: television as a laboratory of humility and ideas.
THE EDITOR’S CRAFT
Correct yourself and others. A new profession between cinema and TV.
PRACTICAL EXERCISES AND REVIEW OF THE WORKS OF THE CLASS COURSES

Other compulsory subjects of the course:

Direction
First 3 parts of the Editing program
General part of the Photography program
History, analysis and criticism of the film
Audiovisual language

The number of hours reserved for individual subjects varies according to the phase of the academic year and the decisions taken from time to time by the teaching staff according to the achievement of the educational objectives.